Saturday, September 23, 2006

Kräftskiva times



The crayfish season in Sweden used to be regulated by law. Apparently the Swedes likes the ideas of the government telling them what to eat, and when, as they pigheadedly sticks to the tradition. Anyway, an excuse for having a party is never a bad one, so we had one. This is a while back; I just haven’t got around to writing about it untill now.

I will now, for the benefit of my foreign friends describe the set up of a so called kräftskiva:

The main food is of course the crayfish. If circumstances are good you can count on each person eating about one kilogram of crayfish at a sit down dinner. Accompanying it will be: toast, matured cheese, snaps and beer. Often you’d also serve a pie with it, to make way for a lot of snaps to be drunk, without your guests falling of their chairs.

A song accompanies every slug of snaps – a so-called snaps song. Before and after the snaps are downed, everyone around the table looks each other in the eye. To some people a true measure of etiquette - or not. (Incidentally, I just hate etiquette-snobs …)














In 1921 there was a referendum in Sweden on the issue of prohibiting alcoholic drinks. The propaganda machine for yes to alcohol presented the following poster. Famous writer Albert Engström declares the need for alcoholic drinks to stay as: “Crayfish craves these drinks”.

The result of the referendum ended up with 51% saying no to the prohibition.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

London Calling

And just how cool is this pic on a one to ten scale ...?

Sunday, September 03, 2006

And as an addendum to my latest article I will put in that Augusto Pinochet very appropriately was matched with a can of cider I had in my hand in one of the photos.


Friday, September 01, 2006

"Thing is it did not"

I used to be really flattered when I was little, and I was compared to Liv Ullman what looks concern. She was an absolute heroine of mine as from the age of about eight and onwards. This was before anyone ever mentioned I might look like her though; her and Bibbi Andersson were my heroines. (Ingmar Bergman films used to run regularly on Swedish TV them days.) The first time I overheard someone mentioning the resemblance I was happy. The second time I heard it mentioned I was in heaven, as I knew then it had nothing to do with coincidence.

Second time around I was likened to someone, was a matter of horror to my teenage ears, and really bothered my vain self. I was on this bus and I realised the girl in front of me was whispering to her boyfriend about me. What I overheard was “looks like Hotlips”. This was of course when Mash was very much on the agenda. As much as I liked Hotlips for her straightforwardness, I disliked her looks. ( I am sure my psychologist friend M would give me some down to earth explanation as of to why). Anyway being likened to her was not something I liked in any way.

Logging on to msn the other day I notice one of my msn-mates calling himself 60% Charles Bronson. Asking him what this was all about I was referred to this site where one can have ones face matched to that of a look-alike celebrity: “Find the Celebrity Within You”. Being one for weird internet pass time opportunities, of course I wanted to have a go. Thing was though ... somewhere at the back of my mind lurked this … was there going to be any connection to my horror look-alike Hotlips … !?

Thing is it did not.

Thing is, do I feel any better for it?

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